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The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason | 
| Author: Sam Harris
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  58 reviews
Sales Rank: 3977
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0743268091
EAN: 9780743268097
ASIN: 0743268091
Publication Date: February 6, 2006
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| Customer Reviews: Read 53 more reviews...
 Neo-conservative apology August 25, 2008
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
As an atheist, I was drawn to this book through the endorsement of Richard Dawkins - an endorsement I find baffling. As a number of reviewers have noted this book does not remotely deserve to be bracketed with The God Delusion and other sober critiques of religious faith.
The biggest clues to Harris' agenda are revealed by the 'authorities' he invokes to buttress his opinions: the discredited pro-Israeli 'scholar' Daniel Goldhagen; the tub-thumping neo-conservative Thomas Friedman; the Zionist Alan Dershovitz (a man demonstrably shown to have manipulated historical sources in constructing a fervent defence of Israel), and Samauel Huttington.
It is not suprising given these bed-fellows that Harris allows himself to entertain the most bellicose, 'intolerant', indeed genocidal excursions in order to deal with the 'menance' of Islam. This includes - I kid you not - a pre-emptive nuclear strike against an un-named Islamic country with designs on the bomb. (Iran, presumably).
Neither is it surprising that Harris rejects outright ANY attempt to explain the rise of political Islam by reference to political factors - such as Western imperialism, the illegal war on Iraq and the West's uncritical support for Israel. (At the same time Israel is commended for its uniquely high moral standards and remarkable restraint. Harris also brushes over Bush and Blair's disastrous attempt to re-make the Middle East by casually noting "our (sic) adventures in Iraq".)
Leaving his ideological agenda aside the work is just plain badly written. It is FULL of non-sequiturs. One notable one is his insistence that we should understand Islam through scripture alone as this unambigiuously reveals its pernicious nature. This is quickly followed by a dismissal of more benign and contradictory passages in the Koran as they offer no guide to the actual practice of Islam by Muslim governments. An under-graduate essay would be rightly pulled up for this fundamental lack of internal consistency - and disingenuity.
There ARE legitimate questions to be raised about the compatability of Islam with liberal-democratic values. Given the all-encompassing nature of Islam as a mode of living, and its prescriptive character with respect to matters such as jurisprudence, it is evidently right to ask questions of liberals who would rather avoid thorny debates in the name of 'tolerance'. However, this is not a book which attempts to address such questions with any sophistication. Instead, we are offered a polemic which completely fails to engage with the complexities of the modern world and the inter-play of religious ideology and politics.
 The End of Faith is Nothing But a Mirage July 25, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
To no one's surprise, Mr. Harris trashes religion and faith as effortlessly and effectively as a tornado renders a cow weightless. "The End of Faith", however, comes across more as a divisive and apocalyptic rhetoric than anything else.
Mr. Harris implicates religious dogma for most of the death and destruction that has gripped this world in the past and the present, when in fact, 500 ng/dl or more of the hormone testosterone is probably responsible for most of the ill effects in almost all societies, past and present. As long as there is a propensity to compare p*nis size, and there are excesses to be had, there will be blood. Granted, religion probably provides an extra kick to compel a nutjob to walk into a crowd and blow himself up. But even if all religions of the world were to be eradicated, there are a plethora of other excuses to wreak hovac, e.g. tribalism, nationalism.
For there to be world peace, Islam must undergo a radical transformation, asserts Mr. Harris. Yet, he almost completely ignores the West's meddling in the internal affairs of many Middle Eastern countries to suit their selfish needs.
We've come a long way since the barbaric eras in our collective histories, and we still have a ways to go before civility is pervasive. Islam and WMD will not spell the end of the world. The end of faith is as illusive an idea as the paperless office. Faith will persevere, life will go on, and Mr. Harris will greatly benefit from a chill pill.
 Brilliant but Dangerous July 5, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
The thesis of Sam Harris's book is that, once any group of people believe that they have a monopoly on moral truth, they are capable of perpetrating the most enormous crimes against humanity in the firm conviction that they have a duty to stamp out evil (Satan) in the name of good (God). His book illustrates this with numerous examples of the intolerance of Judaism, Christianity and Islam not only towards each other but towards heretics and unbelievers - those who do not cloak their ideas of good and evil in the guise of supernatural personae.
Unfortunately, Sam Harris falls into two traps. First, he fails to see the huge irony of his own moral position - he castigates mediaeval Christians for torturing and extorting confessions from heretics and witches, who were seen as agents of Satan, yet creates his own Satan in the form of `terrorists' who apparently, for no reason other than their blind obedience to Islamic teaching, would choose to die just for the sake of killing people who do not share their world-view (pages 28-29). He thus argues (page 199): "Given what many of us believe about the exigencies of our war on terrorism, the practice of torture, in certain circumstances, would seem to be not only permissible but necessary". Substitute the word `Satan' for `terrorism' and Sam Harris is in the same moral position as the Pope who sanctioned the Holy Inquisition.
Second, like many atheist writers, Harris fails to understand that people do not necessarily come to believe in a particular brand of moral teaching merely because they are told it is the word of some supernatural entity. They do so because the messages of these great religions chime with something within their humanity that addresses their deeply-held sense of injustice and suffering. Such messages provide hope. Secular political and moral philosophies can be attractive for just the same reasons, albeit that they are more firmly rooted in achieving change in this world rather than the next. Politics has therefore frequently hijacked religion, and vice-versa, to serve a common purpose: that of helping people to fight oppression, and to counter threats they perceive to their morally superior (as they see it) way of life.
By failing to understand this, Harris significantly underplays the extent to which the perceived intolerance of one moral framework for another is rooted in, and can be fomented by appeal to, political grievances (page 109). Unless these are tackled, the threat of Islam to Western secular moral values (which is his main concern) would not disappear even if every Moslem gave up their belief in Allah and the Prophet tomorrow. His attack on religious faith and belief is therefore misguided. Furthermore, his Crusade of intolerance against infidels who do not share his particular moral stance knows no bounds in the evils it might unleash against humanity. On pages 52-53 he argues: "Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them... This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan and is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas".
In my view, the answer to the problems Harris identifies is not to demonise all believers, but to recognise and support all those people of all professed faiths (and none) who already subscribe to moderate beliefs and who already understand the dangers of accepting ancient teachings as ossified absolutist moral frameworks. The enemy is not faith per se, but a heady mixture of fundamentalist beliefs that are impervious to reason with a wide sense of global social injustice which oppressed peoples are now learning to address through suicide bombings or the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction. To win this war, we need to tackle social injustice and to reach out to others in a way which shows that we occupy a moral position that is truly worthy of universal respect. It is by no means apparent that we occupy such a position nor yet fully understand what it might look like, but it first requires us to understand how others perceive us. Sadly, Harris seems to lack this insight.
We also need to do more to educate people and promote a greater understanding of what people believe and why, including the atheist standpoint. We should teach young people more about the role of religion in history. Although we should not declare war on faith, it seems to me not unreasonable to insist that children are not indoctrinated into any particular religion, any more than that they should be indoctrinated into any particular political philosophy. Moral teaching should be based on principles of mutual respect - the rules of behaviour that are expected if society is to operate fairly and efficiently in the interests of all its members.
Yet there remains a moral dilemma here that Harris is right to flag up (page 129): "what will we do if an Islamist regime... ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry?" His answer is again revealing: "...the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first-strike of our own... it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day but it may be the only course of action open to us, given what Islamists believe". To be fair, Harris struggles with the morality of such an action, but the fact that he can entertain such ideas at all undermines much of his argument against the world-view of his perceived enemies. A better answer might be that if we ever find we need to use violent means to prevent an even worse evil, let us be first cast-iron in our certainty that the evil we fear is a real one and not a symptom of our paranoia, that all other methods have been tried and failed, and that our actions are targeted only at the perpetrators of the evil, and not at the innocent. And let us not kid ourselves that, if we ever commit violence that does not meet these standards, yet believe we were justified, we may be acting the way our ancestors did in the name of their God. It may be hypocritical to blame them.
All this said, Harris does a masterful job of rallying the arguments and pointing up the dangers that the West now faces from one ingredient in the potentially explosive mixture mentioned above. His diagnosis is incomplete and his prescription may be flawed, but his book provides ample food for thought. I would recommend it.
 Disappointing - an undergraduate thesis June 22, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Apart from Chapters 3, 4 and 5, this book reads like an undergraduate thesis. It is overlong, confusing (seemingly for the sake of it) and a poor companion to Dawkins' The God Delusion, Hitchens' God Is Not Great and Harris' own Letters to A Christian Nation.
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 actually deal with the relevant subjects - and are excellent, compulsive reading. The rest is, frankly, dross with little meaning or clarity. For example, Dawkins writes very lucidly about very difficult and complex subjects, making them accessible. In this book, Harris mostly confuses and writes with a staggering lack of clarity.
I wholeheartedly recommend the three other books mentioned above. This one, you can take it or leave it.
Hard hitting religious polemic May 2, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Incredibly 120 Million Americans (who claim to be Biblical literalists) believe creation was 2,500 years after the Babylonians and Sumerians learned to brew beer. In this book, Harris argues daftness has a dark side; unquestioned religious faith causes some major problems.
A quick glance of the globe and one can easily correlate two competiting religions co-located and needless bloodshed:
Palestine: Jews v. Muslims
Balkans: Orthodox v. Catholics v. Muslims
Northern Ireland: Protestant v. Catholic
Kashmir: Muslims v. Hindus
Sudan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Muslims v. Christians
Harris also points out that religious faith, by taking dogmatic and unquestionable moral positions can block Scientific progress. For example, stem cell research - the candle of hope for those afflicted with insufferable conditions. It really isn't fair that someone can spend their life in a wheelchair or suffer Alzheimer's when a breakthrough in stem cell research could change their life.
However, some of his analysis is a bit one-eyed. For example in his analysis of Islam, he produces a range of statistics and surveys of Islamic countries which show them following a common thread of inhumane values. The problem is that he leaves out some of the more liberal Islamic countries, such as the U.A.E. and Malaysia. That said most of his points are well made, for example the insularity of the Arabic world is evident by the very low number of books translated into Arabic. In 2002 Spain was translating about the same number of books into Spanish in a single year as the entire Arabic world had translated into Arabic since the 9th century!
His writing style is methodical, surgical and logical. He coats that with the occasional dabble of dry, sardonic humour. For example, if the Bible is the word of God, how come Shakespear's writing is of a higher literacy standard? Or why did God creates 250,000 species of bettles?
It's a good book, but the hard line atheist angle won't win over most theists. There is the odd compliment to Religion. He does point out that the Muslim conquest of Spain meant that classical Greek texts were translated into Latin which eventually helped them find their way into the Renaissance. But overall, the standard theist will just feel they are being misrepresented and misunderstood. It's a hard hitting religious polemic, but it will more than likely just be read by those who already have a religious aversion.
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